Checking for reloads

Anon

I have a script that sends form data to itself. Specifically, it's a free for all links page. The form's on ffa.php, and the form data is submitted to ffa.php as well. PHP in ffa.php checks to see if there is form data using isset() and if so, adds the link.

The problem is, the user may hit "reload" and unknowingly send the form data again. I could easily fix this by using a separate script to process the form data, but I like the simplicity of one script. Is there a way to prevent reprocessing form data from reloading a script that receives its own data?

fatal

They way i get around the "RELOAD" problem is that i Add the data to the database and then use header() to redirect them back to the same page, so if they hit refresh, it wont readd the info:

header("Location: index.php?section=yoursection");

but make sure that you don't output any html or anything b4 the header, or it'll say it wasn't able to send header information...

Anon

thanks, that worked. but what if I want to display an error or something? now it just goes to the page without showing any indication of whether or not the data was added.

dannys

You could modify the solution slightly to account for this:

header("Location: index.php?section=yoursection&reloaded=1");

In your script, print an 'already submitted' error if $reloaded is set.

You could include the following near the top of your script:

$errorMsg="";
if ($reloaded)
$errorMsg='<DIV CLASS="errorText">Form data already submitted</DIV>';

And then simply echo $errorMsg at the required place in your HTML. If there is an error it will be printed.

Hope this helps.